


Keep me in Mind

by leo_minor



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Genre: Accidental Death, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 10:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18259403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leo_minor/pseuds/leo_minor
Summary: It is the fierce last stand of all he is.





	Keep me in Mind

**Author's Note:**

> this reads totally differently than my other stuff & it's super sad & i'm sorry. have a good read !  
> ps. title comes from the song Well I Wonder by the Smiths (which really fits the mood of this story)

The hero's path has surely led him down the windy road of Lorule Castle by now.

 

Thank you, yes, a grand thank you to him for taking the time, of the essence more than ever, thank you for coming back home when there's nothing left for him there, other than the measly merchant of course, the one that crawls under the table when thunder strikes - thank you for letting him know, without the knowledge of it, that hiding will soon become futile and their fates, inevitably, are about to be tied together with pretty golden thread. Red thread they already have, and it holds strong even in the cracks between their worlds, and as the hero explains, with gestures gentler than everything but his eyes, that he must go somewhere darker, somewhere more dangerous than ever yet, he leans in to kiss him and mutter an apology against his lips. And the merchant recognises the somewhere as home, and understands the journey there will know both their steps.

The hero's path has surely led him through the gates by now, so Ravio must hurry; he knows the way better than he knows himself. Some childish and undead part of him had thought that perhaps his world might have changed, even a little, from the influence of the hero's work, but all is at it always has been. In the village the houses still look a century old and abandoned, wearing crumbling walls draped in weeds and thistle, and the roads are still littered with splintered wood that's been darkened by flames. The rocks are still sharp and shiny, and their edges are the same as they were when they scraped his knees and cut his feet as a child. He thinks that if he crouched down he might find his own blood. The sky above him is a disgusting grey, no corner the same colour, littered with feeble clouds that do nothing but cry. It transpires pathetic, like the rest of the kingdom, and he asks himself why he loves it the way he does. It was the dirt he sprouted from, or perhaps he never did; he feels the same way as when he first pushed the gates open, and one snapped out of its copper frame. Nothing has been repaired or replaced, neither the door nor the poor princess left in her young adulthood with the fate of an already damned kingdom hanging over her head like a guillotine. He was fortunate enough to be in a position where escape was both preferable and possible; she had known no such thing. No doubt she is still standing there in that tall lonely tower of hers regretting her choice. No doubt the hero stands opposite her.

No doubt, they fight to the death.

His role has been poor and continues to be so, but he begins to see its importance. Selling this or that weapon, passing death from one hand to the next, has been vital but demeaning. Preventing someone from dying, however, glows a brighter glow. It seems that without his arrival, at the precise right moment, there can be no right outcome : it is the fate of one kingdom or the fate of the other. In both cases he'll find a dead princess on the tiled castle floor. In one he'll find his lover's blood as well. The pressure is immense, and he doesn't allow himself to stumble.

His ears are becoming unreliable - perhaps it is the repeated travel between worlds never destined to meet that has confused him, for he has sometimes found himself hearing, in the dark of the night, the mutter of his home town, and the familiar buzz of Lorule Castle's market. Today he hears Yuga's screams and cannot tell if they're real or not. Whether they are changes little to his task; he neither slows nor hurries and takes the steps three at a time. Behind his back is strapped the sword he was trusted with days before he escaped. Or fled. He's rather sure the subject will be brought up.

It's a left - a left and then a long, straight corridor littered with pieces of rusted armour that have, over time, embedded themselves in the red carpet he runs over. He's always hated the corridor, for no reason other than the fact it is long, and unchanging, and allows no room for movement nor thought. It goes one way; if you are not going that way, you are going the other way. There are no other possibilities, and it renders him strangely anxious. This time he is going that way, so he pays no attention to anything else. In the next room he has to take a right, and then kick a bookshelf out of the way to reveal the next room. Things have been moved, organised to ensnare and lure in the hero who took this path before him, but where he relies on memory Link is clever. His way has been cut out for him quite literally with the able slashes of a trained sword. He wastes no time marvelling over it.

The door is closed, and his hands are shaking in fists by his side. There's no use in fumbling with the handle, nor time to, so he hops through the shattered window and cuts his hand on a shard of glass. As he runs across the bridge on the other side this appears a very stupid move to him, but adrenaline allows no room for thought. He did what he saw as the right thing at the time, as he always has, with mixed results as best. Mayhap he should work on changing that philosophy, but can he really change who he is ?

"What more can I do...?!" Hilda shouts, and he can hear her loud and clear through the very last door than separates him from his goal. He slows to a stop and attempts to catch his breath, huffing as quietly as he can. He needs to know what has gone done between these walls, who has won and who has faced defeat. He has to know which face he will have to display, when he pushes the grand wooden doors apart and face the scene - will he be a devastated servant, or a grief-stricken lover ? Whose body will he have to crouch over, and for whom will his tears be spilt ? Under the dark, swirling skies, the spiral of clouds that have gathered over the castle, an ugly premonition, he breathes out and leans against the wood. It's terribly cold against his face. He voluntarily lets it scrape at his face and takes the pain in his stride. It wakes him up. He'd much rather be asleep.

A feminine voice he doesn't recognise mutters a few words, her tone so full of dripping empathy that even he cringes back. There's no question about Hilda's reaction, and listening for it is useless; she will react as she always has when foiled in her plans or contradicted in mad schemes she no longer is the master of. Yuga has done that to her - he's dripped out the reason and replaced it with folly, just slowly enough that she would notice no change until she lost all rationality. With no surprise he hears her yell, and stumble forward. The sound of her staff against the floor is deafening.

 

His time is now.

 

"Please." His voice sounds like it comes from somewhere else, for he feels no vibration in his throat, nor breath escape him. Nonetheless it is his voice. Nonetheless he stands in the doorway and pleas : "This has to stop."

He feels blinded but his eyes see what he had never had the strength to hope for : no one's blood has been spilt. The hero and his princess stand tall in one end of the room with the aura of the winning, the successful and the golden. It is what they are, and what Lorule lacks. It is precisely what Lorule tried, and failed, to steal away from them. Now it seems clear the effort was futile. Only surprise perturbs the princess' otherwise glorious face - she's beauty, you see, the way they'd define it if they had to, the way anyone would qualify the word ideal, and every inch of her skin is tailored to fit the description of perfect, and it's so very unsettling - and Ravio realises his face is no longer hidden. He took no care in it on the way, and had let it slip his mind. It is, however, only a realisation for her. He is deeply shaken to see that Link looks quite grim. For a moment he loses his voice.

He cannot find anything to say to the hero when his blue eyes dig at him that way, in an attempt to cut him apart, dissect his intentions, deduce exactly what his role is in the scene to come. Will they fight ? Will they be forced to oppose each other ? Ravio, evidently, would hate nothing in both kingdoms more than to come to harm Link. Link, however, looks like he's already thinking about what his course of action will be if such a situation arises.

He turns his back on him and kneels before the princess.

"Your Highness," he begins, voice shaking harder than his shoulders, and what a feat, for an earthquake would have done less. "You must forgive me for vanishing at a crucial moment, and for returning only now."

She looks quite mad in that moment, crouched down and folded upon herself like a shivering child. Her hair is tangled and dangles above her face, casting it in dark shadows that make his stomach churn. Her eyes scratch as the very surface of his soul, blaming like no words could be. "Why...?" she whispers, but to him it sounds more like a hiss. He recoils momentarily and, catching himself in the motion, leans in again.

"Your plans were insane," he tells her, and feels immediate regret at the honesty. However there are not many roads left to travel. She has to face what she has become at one point or another in this story, and the sooner the better, for all parties. "I couldn't let you go through with them. Yuga poisoned you and this court, but I didn't- I don't have the strength to face him. I travelled to Hyrule, to find someone who could save our kingdom, and stop you in your tracks. There was nothing else to do..."

"You wanted...me dead..." Hilda twists her neck a little to have a better look at him, and her hair falls away from her face. She is beyond pale, grave-worthy, her features twisted into a heart-stopping mix between fear and hatred. He is half scared she will pounce at him, and rip his head right off of his neck.

"No. I wanted you in the right, Princess, not in the wrong. We don't have to take the dark path. Thieving surely is not the key to restoring light to our kingdom ! Equity, freedom and justice are what we lost and want back. Doesn't it sound like a rather bad start...? There are always alternatives, and I went looking for one. I should have told you, but I... I was afraid. I apologise for leaving you in the dark, Princess. My intentions were never to abandon you."

"Liar," she croaks softly, and unfolds her curving fingers. She looks as though she's about to scratch him. "The Triforce...I need it..."

There's a dull scrape behind him, and he spins around to find Link drawing his sword out. His reflex is to throw his arms open and stand in front of Hilda, shielding her from any possible attacks. Amongst the dismay that blossoms in his chest he feels a dangerous slip of fear, and shuts his eyes. He cannot meet Link's gaze.

"Please, let's put an end to this. There's no need to fight any longer than we have..."

Everyone seems to disagree on that point, no matter how noble, no matter how heartfelt. Hilda rises to her feet, her knees cracking loudly as she stretches her arms out and slams her staff down onto the tiled floor, where it leaves worrying marks. Link takes a step forward, tilting his sword the way one might cock a gun. There's a cry from behind him, and something in him dies with the sound, his hope or his dreams, and certainly his love, because this can no longer end well. His initial relief has been greedily swallowed by mounting dread, that escalates up to the flash of light that comes from Hilda's hand, a last desperate attempt, the last spark of unsalvageable insanity. Before him Link moves so fast that he becomes nothing more than a green blur that gets closer, close enough that Ravio can feel his breath on his face.

 

The light dies away and the hero staggers back. He suddenly feels strangely at peace.

 

He breathes out slowly, and turns towards Hilda. She's back down on her knees on the ground, hugging them tight to her chest. There's a hand newly clamped over her mouth, and she's crying; strangely the tears bring lost humanity back into her eyes. She looks closer to reason, but much further down the path of shock. When he parts his lips to ask her what's wrong, she lets out a chocked moan and squeezes her eyes shut. The fury has left her. She'll make no more attempts. He turns back to face the two Hylians, and lo and behold.

Princess Zelda's face has been further tainted with tears. She looks neither relieved nor upset, but her lips are trembling with silent cries her rank forbids her from letting out. It's a strange sight, to watch her stare at him with eyes so wide, wearing that curious expression of, oh, what was it... Yes ! Empathy, on her face. She looks like she's grieving. Ridiculous. She's won everything, now. She swallows roughly and averts her eyes away from him to look at her knight, and there's pleading in that gaze, a desperate request to get her away from it all.

Link looks. In quiet, twisted wonder Ravio watches his expression crumble a little more with each second, stoicism peeling away like old paint to reveal a scarred wall of pure grief that slowly reddens his cheeks, his ears, the tip of his nose, scrunches up his forehead, and fills his eyes with tears. His mouth opens and if he could he would let out an ugly sound, a cry of pain that isn't his own. One of his hands hurriedly wipes away the tears dripping down his chin, and the other weakly reaches out for Ravio's face. For a few seconds he doesn't understand. Link is staring at him with sadness so deep it ripples off him, and he can't put together why he's provoking such strong emotions in everyone around him when, in all finality, the conflict has been put to an end. But oh how his knees feel weak. He breathes in sharply. " _My love,_ " Link mouths vainly, lips shaking. He takes the last few step and cups Ravio's cheek with incredible care. Like he's a very fragile, priceless object that might shatter any moment.

"Ravio..." Hilda rasps behind him, voice as wet as her face. As wet as everyone's face, around here. "Ravio, I... I'm so sorry..."

There is it again; that persistent feeling of not understanding, that incapacity to put together all the pieces of the picture. They know something he doesn't, and he can't figure it out, not with his head spinning and the shivers that have begun to seize him. Feeling awfully cold, he lurches forward and catches himself on Link's arm. The hero is reluctant to touch him, reluctant to even look at him anywhere other than in the eye, denying something hurtful, something important.

"Oh," he whispers, and understands.

 

He looks down and finds the Master Sword buried in his chest to the hilt. Only then does the cool sensation of impending doom reach his brain, and his knees give in.

 

He pants softly, blinking far more times than necessary. His vision isn't blurry ( _not yet_ _)_ but he's having a great deal of trouble focusing on anything around him. Every colour seems simultaneously too bright and too dull. There's a dark stain spreading across his chest, tantalisingly slow. A burst of terror seizes him, and makes his heart beat painfully out of rhythm - he raises a trembling hand to brush it against the wound. It comes away wet and red. For a second he believes he's about to faint, and his face will meet the tiles in a dreadful, smashing kiss and he won't feel a single sting from it, because he'll be too far gone, but with the feeble strength he has left he remains upright. He sits on his heels and chokes softly.

Link sinks to the ground besides him, taking and letting out raspy breaths. His hands have gone and buried themselves in his hair, and he's pulling at it, tugging it out, twisting the strands between his fingers with the will - no, the desire - to rip them out, to relish in the pain, to make himself pay for the mistake of one single second of flared reflexes, a mistake that has, or will, cost someone their life. His life, Ravio thinks, and his eyes widen. Solitude has crushed him down, and made him bow his head over the sword embedded in his torso, bleeding him out little by little. He needs someone to warm him and to hold him and look him in the eye and say it's okay, Ravio, you're okay, you're going to be fine. He needs someone who'll touch him and lie to him. He reaches for Link.

The hero grasps his hand as soon as he sees it move towards him. They share the same terror of the inevitable, or that's how it seems, because Link is holding him so tightly he feels a dull ache in his bones. Their hands are wet with spilt tears and blood. Link crawls over to him and wraps his arms around him to lie him down on the tiles. His body relaxes against the cold marble, perhaps a little too much, a little too permanently; he feels damaged, broken, like a smashed marionette that can no longer hop nor stand. He doesn't want his strings to be cut.

"Take it out," he begs feebly, reaching up towards Link who stands above him, guilt-ridden to the bone. "Link, take it out... T-"

He coughs and spits out red. His head feels too heavy, so he lets it drop atop the rest of him.

" _I can't_  !" Link signs, desperation shining through each of his gestures like the Hylian sun. Goddesses, he is never to see it shine again the way it does over the deep plains, the singing rivers, high above them both lighting up Link's hair, making him resemble some kind of god. What once made him homesick becomes the epitome of beauty. Even his lover's crying, red face, stained with his blood, looks breathtaking. " _Ravio, I... I'll make it worse. I've killed you...!"_ With those words he bursts into loud sniffles and fat tears course down his face. He hates seeing Link cry - he has only witnessed it once before, in the hero's moment of most deep and wounded weakness. Then he could nurse and kiss and love it out of him. Now he cannot.

"I'm not dead yet," he tells him, and actually manages to grin. His breathing has become faster and more shallow, and he feels the need to hide it. "Please."

Link shakes his head, lips twisted, and he's still shaking his head when he wraps his hands around the Master Sword's hilt, like he has one hundred time before but never in such a setting, never faced with so very much at stake, never standing above the dying result of his mishap. His eyes are screwed shut in denial as he pulls it out slowly, cringing back at the feeling of cooling blood on his fingers. He tosses it behind him, keen to get it away from his hands and from his sight to avoid reliving a motion that's already possessing his hands, making his fingers clench and unclench. When he does force his eyes to open he gives a silent moan of horror and starts shaking his head again. Ravio doesn't need to look to be aware of the blood pooling around his abdomen. He doesn't have enough strength left to offer a reaction. Breathing gets a little harder yet.

A glint appears in Link's eye, the memory perhaps of the urgency of the situation, of what is left for him to do. He forces himself to face Ravio and crouches down to take him into his arms. He rocks very gently backwards and forwards holding him in his arms, and Ravio lets his head rest against his shoulder. He feels sick, and on the way to feeling sicker. The shock that had prevented the pain from reaching his brain has cleared away, and with no fog in its path agony has made a home of the hole in his chest. He churns forward, ready to vomit, but his throat is too weak to push anything out - folded over himself he remains, clutching Link's tunic for support.

"I'm scared," he admits, and looks Link deep in the eyes. He's completely helpless, trembling and rasping, and it's more frightening yet to find the hero in a similar state. He can't tell what's snot and what's tears any longer. He swallows roughly and cries, burying his face in the crook of his neck. "...I'm so scared !"

Link shushes him softly and begins to stroke the back of his head with delicate care. " _It'll be okay,_ " he writes on the nape of his neck, in slow cursive that couldn't be more unlike him, but these are the words Ravio has needed to hear, the words he has been desperate for, the obvious lie that quiets his fears and lets him sob rather than scream. Oh, how it hurts. His vision has flashed black twice now, and the next might be the last. He can't seem to organise his thoughts into anything other than sets of two words : It hurts. It's dark. I'm scared. And sometimes a little more : I want to stay.

" _Stay with me,_ " Link mouths suddenly, his grip on him tightening. He tries to cling to the feeling of the hero's fingers digging into his flesh through his clothes, pressing his skin hard enough to eventually leave bruises. He can see something that Ravio cannot, whether it is in his face or in his eyes, the fear, the growing distance, the rapidly cooling fire that crackles and consumes all in its wake until nothing is left to remain. Don't slip away, Ravio. Don't leave me just yet. But the pain is biting into him and tearing not pieces but chunks, and there is little resolve left to fight it. Tears are steadily dropping down his chin and onto his chest, mingling with the flow of blood that doesn't seem ever stop. He reaches up to grab a handful of Link's tunic, anchoring himself to him, and notes distractedly his dark skin already looks lifeless - it's lost its flush, as though blood has decided no longer to continue its journey. He touches his lover's face and the young man recoils in surprise, before leaning back in to press a kiss to his fingers. He's gone cold as well, then.

Reason is a strange thing. He has found it lacking in many crucial moments in his life, where perhaps a little more thinking might have saved him life-changing trouble. He has found it overflowing in situations where his mouth would have done well to stay shut, and too much of it drowned it all together. And now in a time where he had every right to become hysterical, it was set in in a perfect measure, allowing blindingly clear facts to spring up in his mind amongst the pain and the growing fear. Right besides the No, no, I don't want to die, I don't want to disappear forever and leave Link behind, I want the pain to stop, it hurts, it hurts, it  _hurts !_  stands Seems I'm emptying of my blood. The thoughts are accompanied by no emotion, no particular feeling, and allow small moments of void to punctuate the growing terror. Detachedly, he admits he's thankful for them.

It has become obvious he's dangerously running out of time - because there's only so much blood he can bleed, for one, but because the clear thoughts are dying down as well. The remaining layers of reason in his mind are being ripped to shreds by the icy cold spreading through his abdomen, and it feels somewhat like the world is trying to swallow him, pull him in and away from his lover's tightening grasp.  _It'll be okay_  but Ravio isn't reassured anymore. Link's words have run out of meaning and the pain in escalating, and he's not sure how long he can keep up with it. Now he lets out a scream, trying desperately to externalise it, but the motion causes him to throw up a puddle of blood onto Link's knees. He collapses against him, exhausted.

Link has, above him, become frantic; he's signing something to Zelda, hands a blur Ravio doesn't have the energy to focus on any longer. The princess has composed herself, a little, and what a task it must have been because he's in no pretty state at all. She tells Link in a soft voice that there's no time, and nothing left to do. With her kind words she signs Ravio's death sentence and he's too tired to react to it. Link isn't, so Link cries and Link begins to silently wail something over and over again. It's unnerving. Ravio thinks that even if sound were coming out of his mouth at this point, he wouldn't hear it. Instead he puts all of his strength into reading Link's lips, urgently aware that any word he caught might be the last he ever got from him. " _It's my fault,_ " is what he's sobbing, curling himself over Ravio who fears his body's too weak to react to him. But by the Goddess does he need to speak, even if it's the very last time. He knows what he wants his last words to be, but isn't sure if his last whim'll be granted to him.

"Of course it isn't," he tells him, and willing his voice to be calm has done nothing to change its rasp and gasp and the pants he can no longer hide. "Don't you dare... blame yourself -"

He's silenced mid-sentence not by his lover, nor by the princesses but by himself - brutally his tongue stops obeying him and falls limp at the bottom of his mouth. He shuts it laboriously. His head is ringing with untold pain, freshly renewed by his efforts. This, perhaps, is it. It's a miserable way to go, lying on the floor in a pool of your blood, but he's on Link's lap, in Link's arms, and the hero's scent in on him, soothing him gently, allowing his final moments to be, perhaps, bearable. He smells of death and blood and salt, but there's something in the air that sings sun and grass and river. Ravio clings to him feebly and manages to smile. It feels important. It feels like his final task. It feels like the image he last leaves his lover has to be bring, has to resonate, has to stay with him because he himself is damned... His throat convulses and his mouth fills with a foul taste. He wants to say something, but can't put together what. I love you, mayhap, because he does and will fervently until his heart stops but it's not quite it. Something a little more haunting. It's...

_Please keep me in mind._

Don't forget me. Don't forget the times you woke up with your head hanging upside down over the bed and first heard my voice. Don't forget the kind words we shared. Don't forget the absence and the reunions. Don't forget the fear and the relief. Don't forget the kisses. Don't forget the surprise. Don't forget the shade of my skin or the curve of my lips. Don't forget the love. Don't forget making it and don't forget the heat nor the bliss nor the laughter that ensued. Don't forget the sun and the good times. Don't forget me. Don't let how this ends be the only thing that stays. Don't forget us. Don't let it slip away like I am. Let me stay with you, let me remain - don't forget who I am. Don't forget who you loved.

_Keep me in mind._

It's quiet and quick and barely noticeable. One moment he's breathing hard, hacking up blood and spit, and the next he's terribly quiet. He's squirming and then he's still. The weight on Link's chest becomes unbearable. He breathes in sharply, willing movement to return to him, for this to all be a horrible nightmare, but when he blinks nothing changes. His breath is let out as an ugly sob. He wishes he could hear himself scream, for once in his life, and curses the Gods he was chosen by. The princess' hand on his shoulder is unwelcome.

Holding his still lover tightly against his chest, he cries. Hands dripping with his blood he cries. Hugging himself with hateful ferocity he cries.

For now, he loathes. Eventually, he'll grieve. 

But he'll never forget.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much for reading ! feedback of any kind is much appreciated !


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